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It’s hard to believe that 2012 is nearly past. How has your writing gone this year? Are there any writing things you still hope to accomplish before the new year begins?
This year, I learned I can write a story, even if I get sick of it before it’s done (this was the remainder of last year’s Nano project, Vision) as long as I have an outline and the determination to write at least a certain amount each day. I’ve learned that if I have an outline, I’ll generally find the determination to write at least a certain amount each day.
And, this month, on my current Nano, From Heaven, I’ve learned I can write even when I’m not producing spontaneous ideas–as long as I have an outline to work from. And I’m actually having fun.
Overall, my writing hasn’t been the best ever (March kind of killed some of my inspiration when everything abandoned me for the duration), but I’m pretty pleased despite that. I just have to keep reminding myself my writing fluctuates now and go with the flow, which I’ve managed to do a fair amount of the time when I haven’t felt the urge to write or haven’t had a decent flow of ideas.
Ashe Elton Parker
"Just love me, fear me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." ~ David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth
~*~
Member since 1998.
~*~I learned I can do all the preparations I can and still not have a story to write. :whistle:
Yet if you give some time between you and the buildup of the story, it can come back and you can still write it as if it was fresh.
Always nice to see I'm still a newbie...
So far, the year has gone okay. I’ve been working on finishing up longer works, rather than writing as many shorts as the past few years, so I don’t have as many completed works for the year, but I’m okay with what I’ve gotten done so far. I have more to finish before December 31, though.
What I’m working on learning: writing when stressed. Usually, I don’t. My mind goes in circles, I fret about the present and the future, I worry about bills, I turn to paying work . . . but I do not write. I’ve never been one of those who find the due date of a mortgage as incentive to write, but rather one who becomes paralyzed at the thought.
ErinMH wrote:I’ve never been one of those who find the due date of a mortgage as incentive to write, but rather one who becomes paralyzed at the thought.Me neither! On the other hand, I thought being retired would open up doors to creativity, but learning to live with a husband made that challenging (yes, we’d been married for 14 years, but we’d only lived together for three before 2008). I’m just now, four and a half years later, beginning to find some balance for that, and I’m alternating between whether the writing or the spousal relationship suffers. I still haven’t found a happy medium where I get my writing done and am available to help the husband do things we both need to accomplish around the house and property.
The critical factor with that is, the husband doesn’t mind if I’m actually writing. He does mind if he’s working and I’m mindlessly surfing the web (or if that’s what it looks like what I’m doing). I can’t argue with him on that. He does sometimes make a comment about “all this writing and nothing to show for it” which I presume means, “When are you going to get something you can sell?” Gee, wouldn’t that be nice. I have made tremendous progress on revising this year. I’m behind in achieving my goal, but I’m resetting it for next year. Subsequent efforts, I hope, will go more smoothly.
The writing went fantastic until the end of August. After that came moving and then the holiday job, and the corresponding drop in productivity. Fortunately, there is a light at the end of this tunnel. I just have to get there.
J.A. Marlow
The String Weavers, Salmon Run, Redpoint One series.Writer alter-ego of Dreamers Cove
It’s been a red ink soaked year for me. I’ve edited three novels – well technically four, as I got a recive and resubmit for one of them and did a lot of rewriting of that and obviously then re-editing. Two of them sold, one has had a couple of rejections and I’m going to take another look at shortly, do some work on it. (I know, only a couple of rejections? But they were both from editors whose opinions I have a lot of respect for and – crucially – they gave very similar feedback. So I need to go and look at that book again in the light of that.)
I wrote one draft earlier in the year (that’s on of the sold novels) and am in the middle of one right now. I’ve had two releases and two sales. Since my multi-year goals is to get two books a year written edited and sold then I’m on track, though of course never ion quite the simple way I expected!
I guess the year’s been all about building on what I started learning last year, about making a job of this, thinking long term, developing my craft and my career. Doing the Revise and Resubmit (the second one I’ve had, but a much bigger job that the first one) and then selling that boosted my confidence too. It was hard work, and I’d never revised anything that extensively before but I pulled it off.
This year, and the year before, I did more rewriting of older material than I did of new books. Part of this was an incredible amount of stress, which still hasn’t eased, even though things are looking better in some fields. I’ve not had as much luck coming up with new novels, but I’ve been happy with the ones I’ve done this year: Water/Stone/Light, Resurrection 1, Elves in Space and the new novel, While the Queen Sleeps (provisional title, about to be changed as the story has evolved past where that makes sense). I’ve done some really fun rewrite-from-scratch books where I took things 20 or more years old and created an outline based on the basics and rewrote the work to something much better than it had been. I managed to write a few short stories and I’ve enjoyed it.
So this hasn’t been a bad year for me, but an odd one. I hope that by 2013 my brain will start focusing on new ideas again.
A funny story regarding this though:
A friend of more than 30 years was on the phone with Russ the other night and asked how I was doing.
“She’s doing okay, but she’s worried she’s running out of new story ideas.”
“HOLY MOTHER OF GOD! IT’S THE END OF CIVILIZATION!”
Russ told me that one over dinner the other night. I guess I’ll start having to work harder. I’d hate for civilization to end. LOL
LOL!
I think we’re saved. I have a really cool new fantasy book started as one of my NaNo projects. All I need is time to really get to work on it.
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